Project |
Haslemere Museum |
Size | c1500m2 |
Brief | Pro-bono work in support of the Museum's mission |
Date | Ongoing |
Location | Haslemere, Surrey |
Hutchinson established a revolutionary new role for museums by emphasizing the importance of education for everyone. He encouraged the open display of artefacts and believed that people could learn as much through their hands as their eyes. The museum is an independent charity and has won national awards. It contains nearly half a million specimens, artefacts, papers and images. There are three large permanent galleries and two temporary exhibition rooms, with a library, archive and a dedicated education room for people of all ages. The Museum became a place of local scientific research with residential field courses. It grew into an important centre for adult education and offered a school loan service from 1951, enabling schools to borrow duplicates from the collection. This practice continues today.
The grounds, reputed to have been laid out by Uvedale Price, cover an area of nearly four acres, with a large pond and gazebo, an observation beehive and a tree trail that follows the Museum's boundary through an area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
The Museum has strong links with The Natural History Museum, Kew, and a number of Universities. It has a unique collection of European Peasant Art, a by-product of Haslemere's role as a centre of activity of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the late C19th.
Oval Partnership have built, and continue to refine, a live 3d computer model of the entire premises and grounds. This resource will prove useful as a promotional and marketing tool, a building management platform, an environmental modelling tool, an exhibition design resource and could help facilitate many other day to day museum activities.
One of our aims is to help restore the purpose-built 1926 galleries to their original passive design functionality, updated with modern smart technology. As part of its mission to educate, the Museum committed in 2023 to work towards Carbon Zero operation and to use its collections to highlight biodiversity loss and advocate for a more sustainable future.
We have also guided the recent refurbishment of the Curator's House and continue to advise on architectural and technical matters.
Oval Director Jonathan Pile is a trustee of the Museum, with special responsibility for the buildings and estate.
https://www.haslemeremuseum.co.uk/
